Shivers fits in as Riders' defensive co-ordinator

The Saskatchewan Roughriders’ first-year defensive co-ordinator has his own concepts and schemes — into which he has incorporated the philosophies of Chris Jones, the CFL team’s former vice-president of football operations, head coach, general manager and defensive co-ordinator.

“He was a huge mentor,” Shivers said before Thursday’s pre-season game against the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers. “At first, I just wanted to be a defensive backs coach. After that first year, I really started to understand what it’s like to be a defensive co-ordinator.”

Shivers (pronounced Shy-vers) broke into the coaching ranks with the Toronto Argonauts as a defensive assistant in 2013. Jones, who was then Toronto’s defensive co-ordinator, assistant head coach and assistant GM, challenged Shivers by also having him work with the linebackers and defensive linemen.

Saskatchewan head coach Craig Dickenson was the Eskimos’ and Riders’ special-teams co-ordinator over the same span. That familiarity with Shivers helped when Dickenson was looking for a defensive co-ordinator.

“I’ve always liked Jason as a coach,” Dickenson said. “He’s very intelligent, the players really respect him, and they play hard for him. We opened (the job search) up and the best candidate was right under our nose.

“After I interviewed him, I knew that we had the best guy for the job.”

Shivers takes over a defence that was among the league’s best in 2018, tying a CFL single-season record with 11 total returns for touchdowns (including eight interception-return majors).

“As players, we want to prove that Shivers is the man running things and he’s going to do things his way,” safety Mike Edem said. “We’re all going to be just as good as, if not better than, we were last year.”

Defensive back Ed Gainey has been with the Riders since 2016, the first year that Shivers was the team’s defensive backs coach.

“He’s his own person,” Gainey said. “It’s just the same defence and we’re going to stick to what we know and our bread and butter. We’re not going to change too much and we’re going to get after them.”

That formula also extends to the players. Just like Jones, Shivers prefers big, aggressive, versatile athletes.

“I like big guys because that makes the angles hard on the quarterbacks,” Shivers said. “When you’re dropping into zones and you have guys with long, big wingspans, it makes it harder for them to throw into windows.”